Dave made an Oxcart A-12 conversion for the 1/48 testor kit and I’m looking for one. If anyone has an unloved, unused kit laying around and needs a few bucks, drop me a line.
Troy,
Sorry, I don’t have the Kiwi kit, but I went down to Pima today and took 129 detailed shots of the Habu landing gear. I also took some dimensions. If you need more detail for the next build, let me know.
Here are some samples:
Nose gear torque links and grounding strap
Nose gear steering control
Right main gear hydraulic system
Right main gear hydraulics detail
Regards,
Bruce
Nice pics, Bruce. Will add them to my file.
Looks like they finally got the plane indoors. Restoration starting soon?
I don’t know that there are any plans. The condition of the paint isn’t too bad. One of the volunteers said the sheen was because of the years of dust storms and such under the shed, but there’s no peeling. There’s some dust accumulated in the gear wells, but not too bad.
Here’s a more comprehensive shot of the nose gear:
And a 3/4 view of the torque links…
Here’s a good shot of the left main torque links and hydraulics:
…and a side view:
The red metal is a two-piece band that’s screwed on around the oleo strut. I believe its purpose is to take the weight of the oleo. It’s not part of an operation aircraft.
The right main gear is a mirror opposite, as far as I can tell. In fact the only difference I noticed between the two main gear wells was this object (an accumulator, I think), located on the forward bulkhead of the right main gear well.
The Habu is on pedestals. You can walk under it and reach up to touch the bottoms of the nacelles. There’s a start cart and a J-58 underneath, along with some display cases with a flight suit, a drogue 'chute, etc. It draws good crowds.
It’s right next to one of only three F-107s built (two survive).
Unfortunately, the D-21 drone has been relegated to the restoration yard. Its paint is peeling somewhat.
It sits not far from the B-36, which is back in active restoration.
Regards,
Bruce
Nice pics, Bruce. Thanks for posting them. Files duly updated.
Those D-21 Drones give me the creeps. Just looking at the things, something about them. Looks like some kind of evil bug or something. I get the feeling of some kind of metalic, robotic, cold as death, evil, relentless terminator type of machine that’s been programmed to find me and kill me. Speaking of that, I bet they could have put a nuke warhead in one of those. After it took it’s pics and deposited the camera package it could have targeted a city somewhere in range and BOOM. War time stuff, ofcourse. Scary to think about.
Well, now that I’ve hijacked your thread, I’d better remind folks that you’re looking for a…
Kiwi Resin 1/48" scale A-12 conversion kit for the Testors SR-71.
Is there anyone out there who would be willing to part with one? I guarantee it will go to an excellent home!
Regards,
Bruce
-bump-
Anyone? Bueller? Anyone?
Dave currently has a number of them for sale on ebay. Just search for A-12. If you don’t use ebay, you can buy from his website at http://www.kiwiresin.com. He takes paypal. I’m not sure if he takes any other form of payment though. He has just issued the D-21 Drone kit also. If you want to build that you need one A-12 conversion for the A-12 and one A-12 conversion to build the M-21/D-21. The M-21/D-21s were all converted from existing A12.
Kiwi has them for sale again. You can get them on ebay or at http://www.kiwiresin.com